Last week I watched a webinar called "The Secret Lives of Women: Researching Female Ancestors" presented at the Legacy Family Tree website. Speaker Gina Philibert-Ortega gave many helpful ideas for researching one's female ancestor, or, "ancestress," to use her term. This webinar is available for free only until July 8 so I highly recommend watching…
A free workshop on using and interpreting maps for genealogy research is offered by the Burlington County Genealogy Society of Burlington, Wisconsin on Wednesday, May 20, 2015 at 7 p.m. in Burlington, Wisconsin. The public is invited to attend this educational workshop. The presentation, “Using Maps in Genealogy,” will explore how lands are described,…
Cook Library has two databases you can use to find Chicago obituaries. Patrons most often use the Chicago Tribune Historical Database for Chicago research. The less frequently used is called Chicago Tribune Historical Archive but it's one you don't want to overlook. Here's why: Chicago Tribune Historical Archive has access to 2.5 million obituaries and death notices.…
For all you family history writers out there: the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, will happily accept a copy of your self-written family history or genealogy. Through their Photocopy Exchange Program, you can donate a copy of your writing to them, which they will bind and add to their collection at their…
A piece of advice from the collective wisdom of genealogy: Go back and search again. The larger databases like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch are continually adding new material to their sites, so if you don't go back and search them from time to time, you could miss out on a big find. Case in point. I…
Genealogist Dan Niemiec recently gave us some good hints on how to research Italian ancestors. I do not have any Italian ancestors so I learned a lot about Italian records.However, some things are the same no matter what your ethnic background. First, do your research in the United States. Second, you must know the immigrant…
At a recent meeting of the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society we heard Teresa Steinkamp McMillin talk about finding your ancestor's town of origin. She called this "the holy grail of genealogical research," because once you find that, you can research your family in their homeland, across the ocean.But how to find the town of…
The idea of timelines has come up a few times recently, so it must be time to write about them.Timelines can be used as a tool for genealogists to arrange, in chronological order, all the information you have found on a particular ancestor or family. Doing so can often reveal missing information or wrong conclusions in your…
What are you doing this weekend? If you have British or Irish ancestors, be sure to make time to search findmypast.com, which will be free to all users from midday Friday, May 6 to midday Monday, March 9. According to their announcement reposted in Dick Eastman's online newsletter, you will have access to:Over 900 million…
FamilySearch is the largest and best free genealogy website around, so you want to get everything you can from it. Let's review:The best way to search FamilySearch website is go to the first search box you see, type in your ancestor's name and place of birth, and press "Search." You'll get thousands if not millions…
